MALCOLM X, HIS LIFE AND
VIEWS AND ITS RELEVANCE TO TODAY'S WORLD
By Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, Unit Pendidikan Politik - Institut Kajian Dasar

At the end of the powerful drama on racism, American
History X, the character Danny Vineyard, ended his history assignment with the
memorable words,

"So I guess this is where I tell you what
I learned. My conclusion, right? Well, my conclusion is, hate is baggage. Life
is to short to be pissed off all the time. It's just not worth it. Derek says
it's always good to end a paper with a quote. Since someone else had said it
best, so if you can't top it, steal from them and go out strong..."

Before quoting Abraham Lincoln,

" 'We are not enemies, but friends. We must
not be enemies, though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds
of affection. The mystic cords of memory will swell when again touched as surely
they will be by the better angels of our nature.' "

After watching this movie, it brought to my memory
a true drama and legend on the battle against the ugly beast of racism, the
tale of Malcolm X. I have not been able to watch the movie starring Denzel Washington,
but I have read the famous 'Autobiography of Malcolm X' as told to Alex Hailey
and other books on the famous black leader.

It was a time when the African Americans were
fighting for their liberty. They struggled to have their voices heard. They
fought a biased system and a biased society. As a result of centuries of oppression,
enslavement and injustice, an extremist organisation, which advocated hatred
against the whites and preyed on the insecurities of the African Americans,
was born.

The Nation of Islam.

The name betrayed Islam's nature. It was a cult
that had little resemblance to true Islam. It preached hatred, whilst Islam
preached love and peace. It had a racist outlook, whilst Islam is a universal
religion, for black, yellow and white alike.

A New York telecast in 1959 spoke of it being
'The Hate That Hate Produced'.

While the supreme leader of the organisation
was a man by the name of Elijah Muhammad, the one man who played a significant
part in the rise of Nation of Islam into a large, national black organisation
was Al Hajj Malik al-Shabazz, better known as Malcolm X.

Born Malcolm Little in Omaha in 1925, he was
the son of a Baptist preacher. During his childhood, his family frequently faced
threats from the Ku Klux Klan. When he was four, the Klan firebombed his house,
and that left a lasting impression on his life. His father was actually arrested
for that incident, which illustrated what a divided, oppressive country the
land of the free was in those dark days. Marcus Garvey, who stood for racial
separation and more power for the blacks, influenced both of his parents.

Eventually Earl Little, Malcolm's father, was
killed by racists in 1931. But that was not all, eight years later, his mother
was declared insane, and that landed the final blow to the family of eight.
Malcolm possessed uncommon intelligence and ambition, and faced enduring prejudice
from the American society. Even those who were supposed to spur and motivate
him did not give him the encouragement he needed.

In his autobiography, he pictured in detail an
incident, which left a lasting scar on him. He was the top student in his school.
Once, his teacher, a Polish, asked him of his ambition.

"I've been thinking I'd like to be lawyer,"
the young Malcolm answered eagerly.

His teacher looked surprised. "Malcolm,
one of life's first needs is for us to be realistic. Don't misunderstand me
now. We all here like you, you know that... A lawyer - that's no realistic goal
for a nigger. You need to think of something you can be... Everybody admires
your carpentry shop work. Why don't you plan on carpentry?"

This discouragement played a great deal in making
Malcolm chose to go to Boston to work various odd jobs that paid miserably.
Nevertheless, he viewed this period of his life, which was later plagued, by
a hedonistic life of crime and free sex, as an important educating tool for
him, replacing the university he never was able to go. Here he learnt to be
successful at everything he did, even crime. If he had received encouragement
to pursue his legal career, in his own words, "I would today probably be
among some city's professional black bourgeoisie, sipping cocktails and palming
myself as a community spokesman for and leader of the black masses..."

It was Boston, where he enjoyed his first drink,
drugs and white women. He became involved in selling drugs and prostitution,
while establishing his name throughout the underworld. People called him 'Red',
the hue of his skin, as a result of his grandfather being a white man.

Malcolm X managed to avoid from being enlisted.
He went to record for saying that he was worried only about three things-jail,
job and army. He was judged unfit for saying that he would organise blacks to
kill whites had he been called into the US army.

A year after the Second World War came to an
end, he was sent to prison. It was prison, which introduced him to Islam. At
first he was acquainted with a true Muslim, who taught him about Islam and how
to pray. Nevertheless, the appeal of the Nation of Islam, with its bigotry of
white hatred and black empowerment influenced his sharp mind, and took him away
from the arms of true Islam.

Slowly he started reading again, especially the
work of de Bois (who founded NAACP), Socrates, Shakespeare, Aesop and Gandhi.
His orating skills were polished when he joined the prison's debating team.

A few weeks after his release from prison, he
officially joined the Nations of Islam and started contributing significantly
to the organisation. He gave speeches on the streets and his rhetorical power
and appeal to the masses led them to join the group in large numbers. It did
not take him long to launch himself as an important spokesperson for the Nation.

He set up Black Muslim 'temples' (the houses
of the organisation were called temples rather than mosques, a sign of poor
research by the founders of the cult) in Boston, Hartford and Philadelphia.
Elijah Muhammad made him a minister at a temple in Harlem. In Malcolm Elijah
found a man who knew the true tribulations and challenges of African Americans
in the slums. This was also a man who can lead and had the natural ability of
being the voice of the people. Elijah did not hesitate to use Malcolm for the
good of the Nations of Islam. Elijah was a man who hated the cameras and the
newspapers, Malcolm welcomed, in fact embraced them, despite outwardly he had
harsh words for the media being the white men's tool. Elijah rarely gave speeches,
Malcolm changed thousands of people's lives through his powerful words.

A good example would be his speeches on pork.
Benjamin Karim, an admirer of Malcolm, recalled him giving a sermon on swine
one Sunday. That same night Karim was invited to a friend's house who served
pork, and Karim recalled, "I put a little piece of it in my mouth and it
almost burnt." Later he vomited and could not take anything for that night.
"That was the last time I had any pork... I tell you, Malcolm just had
an effect on people that was astounding."

It was not only the way he talked, Malcolm also
possessed a stature to match his fiery oratory skills. Professor Kathryn Gibson
remarked that Malcolm seemed 'a giant' and 'commanding'.

However stories started circulating, that the
'Honourable' Elijah Muhammad had secret affairs with his secretaries and fathered
a few illegitimate children. Being a conscientious follower of Elijah Muhammad,
he met with three of them and talked to all; all three confirmed the rumours.

Slowly, the once-close relationship between the
spokesman and the mastermind of the Nations of Islam deteriorated. Within a
year, after Malcolm delivered his most influential speech ever-'A message to
the grassroots', he defied an Elijah Muhammad directive on not commenting on
the assassination President John f. Kennedy, and as a result, he was suspended
from the Nations of Islam. A month later, on January, he visited another well-known
Nations of Islam member, Cassius Clay a.k.a. Muhammad Ali. Their relationship
was already strained, but it took a turn for the worse after that.

Upon announcing his break from the Nation of
Islam, he disclosed his intention of forming a 'Black Nationalist party' to
heighten the political consciousness of Afro-Americans. The Nation of Islam
began moving against their once-revered hero. The group filed an eviction notice
on the house, which Malcolm was staying with his family. Malcolm had never been
rich, even under the group. He had used all his resources for his struggle,
and thus the Nations of Islam fulfilled most of his needs.

On April 13, 1964, Malcolm left for the overseas.
First, he went to Frankfurt. What touched him was that how 'Europeans acted
more human, or humane, whichever the right word is.' And he also noticed how
the Europeans treated him differently in a better way, when they knew he was
a Muslim.

After Frankfurt, he left for Cairo. Malcolm X
traveled alone in Cairo, and he was immensely impressed by the modernisation
brought by Gamal Abdul Nasser. He was especially surprised that in the Northern
African state, buses and cars were manufactured. He met Egyptian scientists
and scholars, and discussed with them about the fallacies of America.

Having spent two days in Cairo, he left for a
journey that would change his life.

The pilgrimage to Mecca, also known as the Hajj.

Malcolm was astonished that even in the plane,
"...Were white, black, brown, red and yellow people, blue eyes and blond
hair, and my kinky red hair-all together, brothers. All honouring the same God
Allah, all in turn giving equal honour to each other."

Mecca is only open for Muslims. At first, Malcolm
X faced difficulties in getting permission to enter the Holy Land as Islamic
Court did not recognise followers of the Nation of Islam being true Muslims.
He had to wait for the court decision and spent a night in the airport at Jeddah.

It was here that his guide taught him the correct
Muslim prayers. The irony did not escape Malcolm, who said, "Imagine, being
a Muslim minister, a leader in Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam, and not knowing
the prayer ritual."

However, he faced the difficulties in his stride,
despite being surrounded by Muslim from all over the world who must have been
surprised that their Muslim brother who was about to perform one of the pillars
in Islam did not know the second - Solah or praying. It was not easy, some of
the positions were actually very alien to Westerners, although most Asians would
not have problems in doing it. It was something Malcolm's ankles had not experienced
before, but he continued to try it. He never even thought of sleeping, and refused
to think how ridiculous he must have appeared to the rest who were used to doing
it. After a few days, his ankles swelled.

When the other Muslims realised that he was an
American, they all looked at him in amazement and wonder. Some mistook him for
Muhammad Ali himself, who was famous throughout the Muslim lands for his legendary
victory against Sonny Liston, when Malcolm told them he was a friend of the
popular boxer.

He described vividly his first Solah, the Subuh
prayers. It illustrated his sheer determination and resoluteness in being a
true and proper Muslim, despite his lack of knowledge and experience. In his
first prayer, his words did not come out quite right, rather they were mumbled
and distorted, but that did not deter the spirit to learn in him.

Afterwards he recalled that a friend of a friend
was staying in Jeddah. When he met the family of this man, they all embraced
him as if he had been a family acquaintance for years. In fact, they treated
him a family member.

Malcolm was truly amazed, that this man, who
would have been regarded as 'white' in the States, who barely knew him, had
given up his suite and treated him as a brother. Always in his life, he had
judged a white person's motive as being selfish. But Dr Omar had nothing to
gain by being nice to him. In fact Malcolm was frequently being accused of using
Islam as being a cover for his criminal practices and philosophies. He was jobless.
He had no money. It was his sister, another convert to true Islam, who financed
his pilgrimage to Mecca.

"That morning," he said in his autobiography,
"Was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about 'white'
man."

Dr Omar told Malcolm that most of the problems
of colour that existed in the Muslim world were where Western influence had
a foothold. Islam as it truly is, never taught about racism, about discrimination
those who are not of the same colour.

Finally he was recorded in the court register
as being a true Muslim, and the judge expressed hope that Malcolm would be a
great preacher of Islam in America. Malcolm unfortunately did not live long
enough to fulfill that hope.

The former leader of the Nation of Islam was
enthralled by the sight of millions of people, from across the globe, different
ethnic backgrounds and both of the rich and poor, circling the Kaabah in Mecca.
He prayed and was numbed at the feeling of being in the House of God.

It was here that he wrote his famous letter,
when he made public his change of conviction. It was, as he described, a letter
from his heart. Here are the excerpts,

"Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality
and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practice by the people
of all colours and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the home of Abraham,
Muhammad, and all the other prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week,
I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed
all around me by people of all colours.

"There were tens of thousands of pilgrims,
from all over the world. They were of all colours, from blue-eyed blonds to
black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying
a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me
to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white.

"America needs to understand Islam, because
this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout
my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people
who in America would have been considered 'white' - but the 'white' attitude
was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen
sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all colours together, irrespective
of their colour.

"You may be shocked by these words coming
from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced
me to re-arrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside
some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite
my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to
accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I
have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must
go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.

"During the past eleven days here in the
Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and
slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) - while praying to the same God -
with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the
blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words
and in the actions and in the deeds of the 'white' Muslims, I felt the same
sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan and
Ghana.

"We were truly all the same (brothers) -
because their belief in one God had removed the 'white' from their minds, the
'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude.

"I could see from this, that perhaps if
white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could
accept in reality the Oneness of Man - and cease to measure, and hinder, and
harm others in terms of their 'differences' in color.

"With racism plaguing America like an incurable
cancer, the so-called 'Christian' white American heart should be more recep-tive
to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time
to save America from imminent disaster - the same destruction brought upon Germany
by racism that eventu-ally destroyed the Germans themselves.

"Each hour here in the Holy Land enables
me to have greater spiritual insights into what is happening in America between
black and white. The American Negro never can be blamed for his racial animosities
- he is only reacting to four hundred years of the conscious racism of the American
whites. But as racism leads America up the suicide path, I do believe, from
the ex-periences that I have had with them, that the whites of the younger generation,
in the colleges and universities, will see the handwriting on the wall and many
of them will turn to the spiritual path of truth - the only way left to America
to ward off the disaster that racism inevitably must lead to."

Describing the treatment he received from his
Saudi hosts, he reflected, "Never would I have even thought of receiving
such honours - honours that in America would be bestowed upon a King, not a
Negro. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds."

Personally, reading this letter has always had
a profound effect on me - how a man who previously was possessed by a fanatical
zeal of hatred and racist bigotry, who scorned assimilation with the whites
just as much as the white supremacists did not want to be assimilated with the
blacks, had an incredible change of heart, a leap of faith, when he subscribed
to the true form of Islam. Indeed, the Hajj, which was meant to be a gathering
of all Muslims, to show a unity of brotherhood regardless of race and status,
had signified to this Afro-American leader the true meaning and beauty of Islam.

After his pilgrimage, he was treated as a state
guest by the Saudi government, and he later toured Beirut, Cairo and Nigeria,
where he attended talks, discussions and meetings with scholars and political
leaders alike. Malcolm X addressed the Ghanaian parliament in May, before flying
of to Liberia, Senegal, and Morocco and later celebrated his 39th birthday in
Algiers.

He returned to the United States and formed a
new organisation to fight for the rights of Afro-Americans-the Organisation
of Afro-American Unity, or OAAU. Islam continued to drive him with a new spirit.
He wanted to bring to the attention of the United Nation, through the independent
African nations the cause of the oppressed and downtrodden Afro-Americans.

In November 1964, he was invited to take part
in an Oxford Union debate on the motion "extremism on the defence of liberty
is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." On Valentine's
Day the next year, his house in Elmhurst was firebombed, and four days later
his family was finally evicted.

Later, he refused to spend the night at his friend's
apartment, fearing the lives of the family. He went on saying, "I always
knew it would end like this."

It was on February 21st, 1964, just as he was
about to address an OAAU rally in Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm X was shot by a
black male identified as Talmadge Hayer. He was pronounced dead on arrival.
Although his family organised his funeral to be held at a Church, Alex Hailey
wrote in the Foreword to Malcom X's Autobiography how a crowd of a dozen people,
led by a turbaned Sudanese by the name of Sheik Ahmed Hassoun, Malcolm's new
spiritual advisor, prepared Malcolm for a Muslim burial.

The last sentence in his Autobiography went,
"Yes, I have cherished my demagogue role. I know that societies often have
killed the people who have helped to change those societies. And if I can die
having brought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth that will destroy
the racist cancer that is malignant in the body of America - then all the credit
is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have been mine."

What lesson, you may ask, can Malcolm X teach
us? He lived at a time when racial segregation and discrimination were strife.
His Autobiography may be beautiful, but how much did he actually contribute
towards the betterment of the Afro-Americans?

This man was not a perfect leader without weaknesses.
He had his critics, but Malcolm X embodies a struggle to raise the profile of
his people from centuries of slavery, prejudice and racial apartheid. He had
chosen hatred as a tool to vent the frustration and helplessness of his people.
His remarkable pilgrimage however, was more than a physical one. It was also
a spiritual pilgrimage, which finally provided him with the answer to overcome
the barriers that his people faced, and the rest of the West has continued to
shun it. We can only learn from him. As Malcolm aptly puts it,

"I am in agreement one hundred percent with
those racists who say that no government laws can force brotherhood. The only
true world solution today is governments guided by true religion-of the spirit."